Goodbye, Woman
by Jubchili
Summary: A short drabble on Ulquiorra's thoughts about Orihime before he dies. Rated T for language and complex themes. Cover made by pseudolirium (deviantART)


**Here's another Bleach fic for you lovely people. Ulquiorra senti one shot. (Senti - sentimental btw).**

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><p><strong>GOODBYE, WOMAN<strong>

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><p>When he saw the blast headed for him he knew that it was over.<p>

No matter how fast he could regenerate his limbs, if his internal organs were damaged, then he was done for. The monster in front of him - the hollow form of Ichigo Kurosaki - roared and roared and roared till there was only that sound resonating in the air. Ulquiorra began regenerating his limbs, despite knowing that it was of no use. Beside Kurosaki, he saw the shaken and traumatized form of the girl. Her hands were shaking and her eyes were wider than they could possibly be. Her strawberry blonde hair was a mess and her white garb was shredded in more places than one. Her little blue pins were still in their place.

"Kill me now, Kurosaki. I won't resist. I don't even have the strength to walk"

"No! This is not how I wanted to defeat you!" Ichigo's conflicted emotion puzzled Ulquiorra.

_He can kill me now, so why doesn't he?_

The woman was stationary. She made no move to use her powers on him.

Why should she?

He had threatened, hurt, targeted and killed her friends. Her comrades. Ulquiorra knew that camaraderie meant little to him, and loyalty even less - unless it was to Lord Aizen, whom he was loyal to for giving him his power and his rank. But for the girl, it was everything. She was neither powerful nor was she strong. Her healing power made her useful, but that was all. Yet she seemed to be the cause of all this, and his present suffering.

_Bitch, _Ulquiorra thought.

And then he caught himself wondering why he had thought of that. He didn't care about her and he certainly did not need to feel threatened. Though he was going to die, he did not blame her - she was simply a piece in Aizen's game. He blamed only his own weakness and arrogance.

_How could I have been so stupid, to fall as low as that idiotic Quinto, and Sexta._

Now, how could he be fine with blaming _them_? - People who played no part in this present battle - but he could blame the woman?

When he was first charged to watch her, he felt nothing but annoyance. But he suppressed it and bowed to Aizen's wish. She was pitiful and naive and everything he hated about humans. Her physical beauty was trivial compared to all her flaws - for Ulquiorra could find so many things at fault with her. Her strange notion of friendship always baffled him, and at this moment - where he could see her in such a pathetic state (even more so than when she was first captured), he saw what she called her friend, the monster that was Kurosaki Ichigo. Although he was not in his hollow form right now, he had been only moments earlier.

_Is that really whom she revels so much. Is it truly that same boy that she claims to love?_

Ulquiorra, for all his ignorance of human emotion, could grasp only as much as he saw. The woman was scared and terrorized by Kurosaki's hollow form. Could he not see what he was had done to her? Was this that precious love he often heard her speak of whenever they were forced with one another's company?

Ulquiorra surprised himself by smirking.

_Behold your love, woman. This is your consequence for being ignorant of the ways of the world. _

Ulquiorra could feel himself starting to fade now. He pushed all his remaining Reiatsu into keeping his body in its physical form for as long as possible. He noticed the woman had started towards him. His eyes widened slightly, but his cold demeanour covered up any changes in his expression. She looked, somehow, different when he looked at her in this new perspective. Her eyes weren't wide any more, and her hair was less scraggly. She seemed clam, too calm - and that scared Ulquiorra. He didn't fear anything, not even death - as he knew that it was inevitable for all things. Even immortals must die - if not in body then in soul. To him it was all the same.

And now, here he was, afraid of a pretty human girl because she was not afraid of him, or of Kurrosaki - but Kurosaki mattered little to him at this point.

_Wait. Why did I say pretty? _

Ulquiorra was gawking at himself now, and he had never gawked in his entire life. Perhaps he had in his human life, but that was a past he did not remember, nor did he care for.

He looked at the woman closely again. She had come closer, and suddenly her eyes began to widen. The corner of Ulquiorra's mouth turned up ever so slightly. It was just a façade, her fearlessness. A mask to create the illusion of courage.

He was beginning to fade, now. His wings had already gone, and now the rest of him was following suit.

"Just when I was finally becoming a little intrigued by the way you people behave..." He said ruefully.

He looked at her again, and drunk her in all at once. Her hair - he had touched it once - when he was trying to restrain her. Of course, at the time it had been forceful, and Ulquiorra regretted not being more gentle.

_What, to quote the Sexta, the fuck is wrong with me..._

He thought of her eyes, grey like the dreary sky of Hueco Mundo - yet seasoned with a bright light which brightened even more every time she looked at someone. Her little blue pins - still an enigma of mystery to him, made her look more girlish. Then there was the rest of her body - arguably beautiful: donned with curves and contours that were all out of proportion with one another - yet when you put them all together, her arms, legs, chest and all - it became perfection. Ulquiorra never revelled on physical beauty - that was just an illusion, but looking at her now he could feel something, some strange emotion well up in side him.

Ulquiorra, of course, had no concept of love, but this, to say the very least, was quite a long way off from that. He was beginning to appreciate her - and simple appreciation from someone like him was truly too marveling for words.

_That's why I said pretty. _

Ulquiorra was fading faster now, but he was not afraid. The woman however, seemed genuinely fear stricken, as if him dying would end up killing her.

Ulquiorra still had no idea how these humans' minds worked. His one regret was dying before he got the chance to learn. Unexpectedly, he stretched out his hand towards her.

"So let me ask you again, girl. Are you afraid of me?"

He had asked her before, when they were in Las Noches. Before Kurosaki had come to duel with him. She had said she was not afraid because she knew that her friends had come to rescue her. Even if she died, she would die knowing that they had come - and for her that was enough, apparently.

She said that her _heart _was with them. Her _heart. _This concept still baffled him.

_What is a heart? If I tore a hole in your chest, would I see it? If I split open your skull, would it be there? _

That was what he had said, and strangely enough, he was beginning to realize what a heart was, after watching her for so long. It was the spirit within that kept hope alive. He asked this time because he was still curious as to what she would say.

_What will she say this time?_

"No, I'm not afraid. Really, I'm not" Her face held a pained expression - one of concern which she often held during his battle with Kurosaki.

"I understand" And he truly did, this time. He began moving his hand away, content with the way things were going to end.

The girl reached out and tried to grasp his hand, but it turned to ash as soon as she touched it. His whole arm began turning into dust. But he was not afraid.

He understood it all now.

Before, he believed that in the void of nihility lay true happiness. Because if someone had nothing, and had nothing to lose, then was that not true happiness? He believed that the things reflected in his eyes beheld no meaning, and that which was not reflected simply did not exist. There was nothing in him, and nothing in anyone. There was just a void.

Now, after all that this girl had put him through, he knew that he had been wrong. The things reflected in his eyes were the world, and the things not reflected, like her _heart, _existed. They existed so long as there was hope.

_I see now, in the palm of my hand._

_Is a heart._

_Goodbye, Woman..._

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><p><strong>Hope you guys enjoyed that! I watched a couple of videos about Ulquiorra in the manga to get those last few bits in... hope I captured him properly!<strong>

**REVIEW PLEASE! (No more chapters after this...)**


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